Self-pity

You wallow in your own self-pity when you feel sorrow over your own difficulty or problems, or how unlucky you have been or how you have been mistreated by other people. Feeling unhappy over your own troubles will not make the troubles go away. There are others whose self-pity comes in the form of discounting their accomplishments.

Living brings its own problems is an undeniable fact. You can’t escape that. You make decisions and take actions all the times. But not all your decisions and actions are correct, so bad things happen to you. Accept that you are not perfect. Like every other person, you are just as liable to commit mistakes or end in failure. Chances are you are unlikely to make the same mistakes or fail again if you rectify your mistakes and learn from your failure, which you will not do if you wallow in self-pity.

An indefinitely great number of things can happen to you in your lifetime, the most common of which is falling sick. In moments like this, you lose faith in yourself and at times, you doubt your ability to get well again. It’s so easy to languish in self-pity. The idea here is to overcome the negative feelings and self-doubt, and rediscover your faith. But for some others, afflicted by an illness is more desirable. They get close attention and considerable sympathy for being sick. They don’t feel so cared for when they are well.

Take charge of your life when you are faced with adversity. Never be tempted to give up and fall victim to your own self-pity. Focus your mind on seeking solution, and when your mind is so occupied, there is no space for worry or feeling depressed. Acceptance of responsibility puts you completely in charge of not only your own life but also your thoughts, and of everything that happens to you. When you are in charge of your thoughts, you are in control of yourself and your future as your thoughts determine your future.

How many times have you been under the delusion that you are made distressed or angered by someone. You feel unloved, or the person is unfair to you. When you can’t do anything about it, you lose your self-respect by self-pitying. But it’s you who allow your anger to arise within you. You have a choice of reaction to what other people do or say to you. You don’t have to feel victimized, powerless or descend into self-pity. You can ignore it or look upon it as a feedback which you can use as a basis for improvement.

You think other people are always luckier. They have a lot going for them. They are more attractive, taller, smarter, wealthier and a lot more. They have bigger houses and bigger cars. The reason you don’t feel so lucky is simply that you direct your gaze in a selective manner. You don’t look at those who are less fortunate than you are. You focus more on those who are comparatively better off. This results in feelings of envy, jealousy or self-pity. Perhaps, it’s best if you look at yourself and appreciate how much you have and that surely will liberate you from your degrading quality of self-pity.

You do many things out of self-pity without knowing it. For example, you repeatedly express worry about your health to whoever will listen to draw their attention to you. You crave for others’ sympathy. After a dispute with someone, you continue to perceive yourself as a victim and insist that the other party is at fault. You moan and moan about a multitude of things. You complain and grumble. It surely helps you if you start to ask yourself if anything fruitful has come out of your moaning, complaining and grumbling. Your self-pity can be overcome by assuming control of yourself and your situations, and actively seek ways to arrive at solutions.

People who are pessimistic about themselves are unaware that they are engaged in self-pity. They underrate their own ability when they make statements such as: “It’s sheer luck that I got it done” or “Anybody could do better than I did.” Or they highlight their inadequacies: “Nobody cares about me. I might as well go” or “Who would want to marry me?” When you feel pessimistic, you are likely to feel hopeless too. When that happens, you unconsciously drift into the self-pitying state. Cultivate the habit of optimism. Persist in thinking about all the good things you have and will have in your life

The best remedy is to rid yourself of excessive unhappiness caused by the feeling of self-pity is by realizing that you are responsible for whatever happens to you. Making excuses to absolve yourself and blame other people will only prolong your problems. See yourself as proactive, capable of eliminating any trouble that you get yourself into.

It’s human nature to lapse into self-pity occasionally. It’s totally unavoidable, even to a deeply committed positive thinker. But when you gain a sudden awareness of the self-pitying state you are in, you must quickly free yourself from it lest it becomes a habit.